Look Back at Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos’ Relationship

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos appeared to be happily married for more than 25 years before the Amazon CEO was unfaithful with Lauren Sánchez.

The duo, who wed in 1993, announced their split in January 2019 in a joint statement on Twitter.

“We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” the statement said. “We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”

“We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures,” the twosome continued. “Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.”

Later that day, the National Enquirer broke the news that Jeff had an affair with Sánchez, his longtime pal Patrick Whitesell’s wife.

Scroll through to look back at Jeff and MacKenzie’s relationship:

How they Met

In 1992, MacKenzie worked for Jeff at D.E. Shaw & Co., a New York City hedge fund.

“My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,” she recalled to Vogue in February 2013. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?”

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Tying the Knot

A year after MacKenzie interviewed with Jeff, the pair wed in 1993. “The No.1 criterion was that I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison,” he told Wired in 1999. “What I really wanted was someone resourceful. But nobody knows what you mean when you say, ‘I’m looking for a resourceful woman.’”

Jeff also referred to his wife “smart, brainy and hot” during the aforementioned Vogue interview.

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Starting a Family

Jeff and MacKenzie share three sons and a daughter.

According to CNBC, the businessman quoted MacKenzie’s “great saying” about children to his brother Mark during a SummitLA panel. “She says, ‘I would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.’”

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Keeping the Romance Alive

“Jeff is the opposite of me,” MacKenzie told Vogue in 2013. “He likes to meet people. He’s a very social guy. Cocktail parties for me can be nerve-racking. The brevity of conversations, the number of them — it’s not my sweet spot.”

In 2014, Jeff told Business Insider that doing the dishes every night is “the sexist thing” he does.

Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moet

Cheating Scandal

Hours after Jeff and MacKenzie announced their divorce, the National Enquirer revealed he had been secretly seeing Sánchez for eight months. According to the magazine, MacKenzie and Whitesell were made aware of their relationship in the fall.